


faith wearing thin

by pixiepuff (colourmecrunchy)



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Angst, Feels, Intense, M/M, also a happy ending because -, these two give me enough heartburn as it is without me contributing to it as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 06:08:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colourmecrunchy/pseuds/pixiepuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Colin's religious beliefs have had a hold on him for years, and because of them he's denied this self-sustaining, intense thing that's growing between himself and Bradley for far too long. He needs to make a decision - to pledge allegiance to religion or affection, to continuing to live like a shell, or daring to make life-altering choices.</p><p><em>If Bradley's the fire and light he's tied to, Colin pretty much resembles a helpless moth, a fallen butterfly of the night, wanting the heat even if it kills him. The blaze that surrounds him then must be Colin himself, his thoughts and beliefs and denials, and they're all giving way to something way more profound than faith - they're giving way to</em> love, <em>and for once in his life, Colin doesn't know how to act.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	faith wearing thin

**Author's Note:**

> A/N:  
> I am, above anything, a logophile. I devour words and have a never-ending list of those I hold particularly dear, so I need to spin them into every single story I write. If you see constant repetitions of these prodigious words, you must know it's not from the lack of imagination or because my inner thesaurus would fail me. I simply love them too much and must, with undying devotion, use them until they're not even words anymore but an integral, invaluable part of me.

It aches.

It aches more and more and he cannot ignore it, the way it swirls inside him - it's an endless chant, not unlike incantations, and there's a twisted rhythm to it in the way he can feel the drums thrumming deep within. It used to be a sporadical thing, appearing every now and then, surprising him with its boldness, and then apologizing to him profoundly, retreating back to wherever it is it came from. 

Colin refuses to think for a very long time that it came from his heart.

Now, though, it's grown and fully blossomed into his background music, the white noise he cannot tune out or minimize the volume of. It's there constantly, taunting him, incinerating, possessing his mind and he wants to run as fast as he can, but he cannot outrun the irrational melody of his heart repeating an ode, consisting of a single name. His mind feels infested, coloured differently and redistributing the priority of his thoughts. He is no longer in charge of it, no matter how hard he prays and believes he can control it.

Not anymore; not for a long time now. He's burning from inside out, burning as if at the stakes, the flames licking wickedly and drawing nearer and nearer, and the pole he's tied up to isn't a pole at all, it's _Bradley_ and he's bright and just as warm as the fire, so Colin literally has nowhere to turn.

If Bradley's the fire and light he's tied to, Colin pretty much resembles a helpless moth, a fallen butterfly of the night, wanting the heat even if it kills him. The blaze that surrounds him then must be Colin himself, his thoughts and beliefs and denials, and they're all giving way to something way more profound than faith - they're giving way to _love_ , and for once in his life, Colin doesn't know how to act.

He feels like he can't breathe.

 

He is constantly reminded of his upbringing, his family, and the love they raised him up with.  He knows he's extremely lucky, that having closely-knit family ties was a _blessing_. Their connection was always there, never faltering, and he never felt unloved. From the very beginning, for as long as he can remember, Colin was raised in the spirit of kindness, and to be respectful, and modestly honest.  
So he could continue this with his own children one day.

It no longer feels like a blessing.

 

It's a burden, these ingrained beliefs of his, and they're pressing down on everything that he's feeling lately. He tries to cling to these thoughts, to thoughts of what is right, what his _faith_ says is right, what the religion commands. What his parents taught him about family.

He repeats these guidelines silently, over and over, especially at large gatherings at his home, where all the relatives look so happy and content, exchanging small touches with their significant others - husbands with their wives, wives with their husbands. Colin watches and drinks it all in, and delivers his non-chalant shrugs with well-practised ease when someone inquires why he came to a holiday event alone _again_. _Too busy to be involved right now_ , he says.

He wonders how long he can keep this pretense up.

He knows, you see - he knows exactly whom he wants to occupy the empty space next to him; the empty space that follows him everywhere he goes, the space that haunts his footsteps as well as his mind, and Colin admits, even if only to himself, that the space isn't that empty _at all_.

It's full of _him_ , and his warm, affectionate smiles, his lovely eyes and his surprised barks of laughter at something Colin's said. The space is full of that heady, mulled-wine scent that seems all kinds of sin - delicious in all its forbidden qualities and intoxicating promises. He could easily fill up the Bradley-shaped space with his honey-coloured voice, the way he drawls out in mock pretense that Colin _isn't amusing at all_ with his monkey business, but they both know it to be untrue. The golden hair shine like the Sun, the Sun that was alight with something very close to longing, and Colin can feel that, too. It's radiating off of Bradley, it comes at him sometimes in the intensity of an earth-shattering quake, and sometimes as the aftershocks of a devastating force being denied out in the open.

Bradley aches. Colin _knows_ this.

Bradley cannot fully conecal it, and it's one of the things Colin loves about him so, so much. Bradley wears his heart on his sleeve, and in his eyes, and in his touches. He tries to hold back - for himself and for Colin, but he mostly fails, and Colin hates himself for drinking up these moments of mutual defeat as their gazes linger, and touches cause skin to prickle, and breath to hitch. They push at each other's boundaries in an endless dance of pleasure and torture, unable to put a stop to it.

Colin knows he should, and tries, but he's selfish, he's a selfish petty man because he cannot pretend this feels anything _but_ natural. His faith tells him it's an abomination, that he shouldn't feel this. He shouldn't want it, but he cannot grasp the explanation of the unnatural it tries to portray; he's _feeling_ it, is he not? It wasn't put into him, or planted within, he's not some robot with an uploaded set of wrong emotions. And he certainly didn't _ask_ for it - so if it's there, no matter how dormant it was at first because the intensity of it now scares the hell out of Colin, if it's there it _is_ natural, so how can that be wrong?

 

Bradley is waiting for him. Colin knows. He waits for a sign, a word, a gesture. He's a constant presence, a warm, bright shield and everlasting despite his own inner tempest of conflicts. Colin knows he shouldn't expect Bradley to wait. He should go and be with someone who isn't afraid to love him back.

But he doesn't say this, he _can't_ say it, because Bradley being there beside him feels right and he's not ready yet to shatter either of them.

 _Both_ of them.

He wants no part in it, and yet he feels it resonating inside him, the pull and the gravity and if he doesn't somehow find a way to block this, and re-direct all the pent up energy he's going to give in into the temptation, however wrong it is said to be, and he's going to drag Bradley down with him.

He may be all dark on the inside already, maybe it's too late for him, but he can't steal Bradley's light as well, he can't use him to satisfy his own  forsaken needs. Bradley seems willing, true, but Colin won't risk it, will not chance this because hurting Bradley is-

 

it's unnatural. _That's_ what's unnatural, causing him harm, not _loving_ him.

 

And god does he love him. Every cell in his body is craving him, he's constantly hungry and aching, his dreams of late are a delirius mess that piece together beautifully into the image of Bradley, he thinks of him whatever it is he's doing and wherever he finds himself to be. Colin tries to make his mind go blank, he does, but it doesn't work anymore. It's a constant, endless struggle now, keeping his mind sane and devoid of anything Bradley, and he's growing jumpy, and twitchy, and snappish, something Colin's never been.

At night, he lies awake and denies himself that little relief no one should go without. He thinks of a broad back, and milky skin and thick forearms - it's all to easy to call forth these images because Colin's been exposed to this so many times by now. It's impossible to think of soft curves and feminine features because his mind takes him elsewhere, and if he can't control that bit, he is at least going to control acting out on his urges by not acting out at all. He lies, feverish, too small for his skin under the onslaught of enticing images, and prays for sleep to come quickly. He doesn't know how to redeem himself, or if the redemption is even possible at this point.

 

Sometimes he wonders if he even wants it. He fought against this at first, thrashed and screamed when all alone with his thoughts and demons,  but after years of bottling it up and false pretense, he's losing his will. It doesn't even feel like actual losing anymore, even if he can't yet take steps into the unknown.

Most mornings he wakes up aching, and desperate, delirious in his need to do something, sick of this stoic, still stance he's become so at home with. He wakes up, pressing the extra pillow to himself, holding it the way he doesn't think he'll ever let himself hold Bradley, not without a miracle of sorts, not without Bradley making the first move; sometimes the cold creeps in and Colin feels bereft of things that were never his, and weeps into the pillow, and pleads, soft moans of broken prayers, for forgiveness and strength, and he isn't surprised when the peace of mind never returns back to him anymore.

Someone will snap. It's an inevitability waiting to happen; it's only a matter of time.

Bradley is patient, and gives him his space, and watches him from afar - his eyes follow Colin around and Colin feels so much on display like this, he feels see-through and dirty all at once and as if everyone _knows_ , and he just wants to take a shower and rub at his skin with a brush until he feels raw and clean and new again. What makes him nearly sick with worry and disgust is, that as much as it flusters him, it also _thrills_ him. His heart speeds up and makes unexpected lurches at the fleeting touches, and when Bradley walks away, Colin finds himself longing for more, please more of everything that man has to and wants to offer, and if Colin spaces out when in this particular trance, his mind gets assaulted by a vertigo collage of skin-on-skin images and he doubles in half with dread and want.

He avoids Bradley whenever this happens because he knows Bradley will _know_. He'll sense it, and smell it, and he won't have to do much at all to turn everything to his advantage. He'll just have to show up and give Colin one of his helpless, loving stares and Colin will be gone, stumbling, falling, straight into him and never coming back out.

He's not exactly sure he even wants to anymore.

Eternal damnation is looming overhead, and yet there's a chance, so beautiful in its rarity of love and acceptance while still _living_ , and Colin doesn't think he wants to give that up.

 

His mum visits him on set one day, bringing sweets for everyone, instantly fitting in as everyone's foster-mother, feeding them and taking care of them, laughing with them and offering advice in her kind, unassuming way, and everyone takes to her in a heart beat.

 

Bradley seems to adore her.

 

Colin watches, helpless and desperate and as out of breath as he is out of depth, when two most important people in his life unknowingly play a game of chess. The board is his life, and they are opponents on it, and he allows a moment of self-pity for having to choose between them. He doesn't want to, and he knows it would going to tear him apart, whoever wins this wretched, twisted play of titans.  
He finds himself grinning broadly when his mother scolds Bradley for forgetting to wipe his hands before taking food, and he freezes when something warm and content spreads all through him when Bradley has the decency to blush and sneaks a glance at him with shy eyes.

He's swallowing down saliva and air and screams of fright, he's going mad of keeping it inside, of pretending he doesn't want to know what kissing Bradley would feel like, what holding his hand in front of his mum would cause - would she smile at them, or would she never speak to him again? He wants to know so desperately, and yet he's afraid of the outcome.

 

He cannot lose her. He cannot lose _him_. 

 

She was all he wanted and needed as a kid, always there, always helpful, teaching him of love and right and wrong, and little Colin, and then later not so little anymore, drank it all in like a sponge, like dried-up soil in summer heat, like a man dying from thirst. Lately he's not so thirsty anymore. His ideas of right and wrong play a battle, a vicious, brutal battle, fighting for dominance who will be the one to re-shape and re-frame his mind.

He lets them wrestle it out among themselves, wanting no part in tipping the scale, but then he realizes it's not _him_ that holds the power over this.

It's Bradley.

 

He's unrelenting in his persistence, never failing to show Colin he's his favourite. His first. _The one_. His attention comes unwavering, his concern without competition. Bradley makes him feel good even when he doesn't try to be likeable, and Colin feels invisible strings of destiny pulling him toward this affection. Bradley never stops smiling at him as if Colin is still, after years of knowing each other, the most beautiful thing he's ever seen; he doesn't stop whispering to him softly, making him silently wonder if this is what their pillow-talk would look like; Bradley, in his earnest exuberance still takes his hand and drags him behind himself to show Colin something he deems worthy sharing - even if they end up filling up the cross-puzzles all wrong just to spite every one else. It's very difficult to hold back if Bradley looks up at him, eyes large and hopeful, as he hands him his cup of tea and Colin has to, simply _has_ to brush his fingers over Bradley's but looks away as he does it because every man has his limits, and this is his.

Bradley disregards the boundaries with respect more and more often now, and he can either feel Colin's mindset shifting, or is maybe growing impatient himself, but regardless of the reason, he's inching closer. It's not about slipping under Colin's skin - he's done so way back, he's crawled underneath and set camp there, digging in and taking root, and Colin thinks if there's a simile he could use for Bradley and what he is to him, the only description worthy enough is that he's Colin's tree of life.  Bradley is inching closer in that all-encompassing way the way the day slowly fades out with certainty of time running out its course; Bradley feels omnipresent and unavoidable - and Colin is sure, in fact, that if you cut him in half like a tree, his core would consist of round, endless annual lines and they would all spell _Bradley_.

 

When Colin falls, not unlike the angels but not unlike the felled trees either, it doesn't feel like falling at all. They fall simultaneously, desperate in their need, beaten raw with years of holding back. There are tears streaming down his cheeks, but not from regret or incessant worry anymore. It's sheer terror mixed with hope, he _wants_ so badly it hurts, and he sobs into Bradley's mouth to prove it. Bradley drinks it all up, and silences it, devouring him like Colin's the sweetest nectar and he's feeding his years-long starvation.

Colin offers himself, and pulls him close, clutches at him with the zeal of a dying man, wanting, needing, deserving the worship directed at him. Bradley holds him like the most fragile, glassy piece of art and Colin loses himself within the discrepancy of being held with such devotion, and touched with such raw, unprecendented lust. The passion mixes with gentleness, it intensifies the reverent slides of fingers and lips and elevates them to roughness Colin never knew he needed. The grabbing and strong, possessive holds are underlined with something so _sweet_ Colin feels he can't breathe from the intimacy of it all.  
When he used to wake up broken, and helpless, conflicted from _painfully_ erotic dreams about Bradley, they now play out in front of him with more vividness and lucidity his night-world could ever muster. Bradley's touches feel like instant marks, tiny tattoos, and he touches _shamelessly_ , with abandon, no place for shying out because time was not on their side in the past. They lost years of this, years of bliss, and for a moment, Colin wonders if he didn't ruin it all for them beyond repair.

When he enters Bradley, and invades him, possesses him and Bradley arches into him, wanting more and more, as if he needs the essence of himself, of both of them, to just wrap around each other and stay that way until they're both redeemed, or until the universe collapses back onto itself with a reverse big bang,  Colin knows it's not. It's _not_ too late at all.

Moving together, and losing himself in Bradley, seeping into him through their connected bodies somehow, surprisingly, and a little miraculously heals him, and fulfills him; Bradley opening up and offering himself back is more rewarding than any prayer uttered into the silence of the night, when the dusk spills into pitch black and there's finally a harmony of nuances of the night and his soul. Their bodies are intertwined beyond recognition, rolling in lust and despair that comes crashing down around them, and when the heavenly feel of completion tips them both over the edge, and Bradley's tears mix with his own, Colin understands they are both each other's downfall _and_ salvation at the same time.

He may be lost due to loving this man, but through his love also lies the path of his redemption.


End file.
